


Keep the Nightlight On

by MadBertha



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 04:54:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4006561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadBertha/pseuds/MadBertha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Walter's out late, Dan and Laurie worry</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep the Nightlight On

**Title: Keep the Nightlight On**  
**Rating** : PG  
**Pairing:** Daniel Dreiberg/Laurie Juspeczyk/Walter Kovacs  
**Summary** : Walter's out late; Dan and Laurie worry.

For [this prompt](http://spam-monster.livejournal.com/4155.html?thread=11874875#t11874875) in the kinkmeme.

 

  
"You're late. Beyond late."

"Wasn't aware we had an appointment."

"Damn it, Ror-- Walter, do you have to... It's been three days!"

Daniel's in front of the fridge and Walter's very thirsty. "Sorry, Daniel."

"Look, Walter, I understand, I get it. It's not like we're joined at the goddamn hip, and I can't expect you to understand. Not after all those years you have not had to answer to anybody..."

"Still don't."

Daniel looks furious. He slams down his coffee and whispers, bending close, "She's just gone to sleep. She's been crying and saying it's Veidt, Veidt got you. She's never had to deal with your vanishing act." _Not like me_ , he leaves unsaid.

He can't look at Daniel now. Shame floods through him and pushes him to the bedroom, where a reading light is on. He sits on the bed, and she wakes up.

" _Mpfft_. Walter?" Rubbing at the sleep, she looks like the child that was dressed in her mother's clothes all those years ago and he reaches out and strokes her head. "You asshole, where have you been?"

"Won't happen again, Laurie," he says.

~~~

The knot tops are gone, the survivors decaying in their grief and madness. The places where he lived, where he grew up before he was saved from her, where he worked, all obliterated. The city is a different beast now but he recognizes the monster that it still remains and affirms it every night in little battles. It's not who wins in the end, it's the fighting.

His shoulder feels sore; lately, it's been giving him problems. He's no pure untouchable instrument of justice, not any more. It's time to go home.

It is a New York street, nowhere near where a particular brownstone used to be, certainly not as wealthy an area, and Walter is watching an unremarkable window in a rather plain block of apartments. A man sits by the window and, against the curtain, the silhouette of a woman.

Foolish, both of them, better to see than be seen.

He stands for a moment, remembering other dark hours spent staring at a tungsten-lit window, the half hour before the birds herald the morning. He'd turn and walk back to his own tenement, the predators that hunt at night having slunk home, wrapped in his own thoughts as he climbed into his window.

It's still late--but not as late, he thinks, as he walks up to the front door and turns the key.  


 

Song: [Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might be Giants](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdhouse_in_Your_Soul)  
_Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch (and while you're at it)_  
Who watches over you (keep the nightlight on inside the)  
Make a little birdhouse in your soul (birdhouse in your soul)


End file.
